Tips and cautionary tales about surveying users regarding library use, satisfaction, and user preferences. Concurrent session for the SLA Maryland 2015 event, Leveraging Data to Lead.

1. Data: Cautions, Questions, and Answers
Surveying Users: Be Careful What You Ask For
Richard Huffine
SLA Maryland: Leveraging Data to Lead Event
November 5, 2015

2. Overview
• Why Survey Your Users?
• Choosing Survey Questions
• Basic Rules
• Evaluating the Results
• Taking Action
• Example Survey

3. Why Survey Your Users?
• A survey of users can identify:
– Things they value
– Opportunities to address their unmet needs
– Challenges they have to using your services
– Variations in user populations
• You can also use a survey to:
– understand their preferred methods of access (print or electronic)
– measure their interest in new products or services
– understand where they seek information

4. Choosing Survey Questions
• Choose questions that can support differentiation in
analysis:
– Organizational affiliation
– Age, Sex, Education, Experience
• Select questions they can answer based on personal
experience, not what they think you want to hear
• Ask questions that will help you shape your future
program or activity

5. Basic Rules
• Keep it simple
• Keep it short
• Make it relevant to the respondent
• Only ask questions you need to know the answers for
• Give them options, but not too many

6. Evaluating the Results
• What can you learn?
– Population characteristics
– Behaviors
– Satisfaction
– Ratings
– Awareness of available services
– Input on future options
• How do you determine success?
– Identify your population
– Choose a random sample
– Assess your response rate

7. Taking Action
• Make sure you share the results with your community
• Use it to inform management about what you learned
• Develop an action plan based on the results
• Repeat the same survey periodically to
validate/challenge your assumptions
• Let the data drive your actions when the results are
conclusive.
– When they aren’t, find additional ways to test your ideas

8. Example Survey
1. Please select your organization
2. Describe how frequently you access the journal literature.
3. Describe your method(s) of obtaining journal articles.
4. To stay current in your field, how current is the literature you seek?
5. How satisfied are you with the journal access you currently have?
6. Do you currently use the Library to access electronic journals?
7. If yes, how satisfied are you with the journal you have?
8. In addition to journal literature, are there any other electronic
information sources you feel are critical to your work?
9. How important is access to reference works?
10. Please list any journals you would like to see added to the library.

9. Example Survey

10. Example Survey

11. Questions and Discussion